Randell Beck speaks

As I predicted, Randell Beck responds today to the Schuldt/Hildebrand scandal:

Speed is the thing. But, as we discover every day and for many reasons, this digital landscape is fraught with peril.

While we must deliver much more and much faster, the standards that have long been a decent newspaper's pact with readers - accuracy and fairness, both co-mingled with skeptical editing - cannot easily vanish into the maelstrom of Internet mumbo jumbo.

Even if we're not always accurate, fair or perfectly edited, we try to be.

All too human, we still try to do the right thing. The most important word in an editor's arsenal has always been "no" - no, that doesn't meet our standards. And it remains so today.

Case in point: Last month, we first reported on our Web site that an employee of a Sioux Falls firm, Hildebrand Tewes Consulting Inc., had been fired after more than $100,000 turned up missing at the company. The story also appeared in the next day's print edition.

While we knew the identity of the employee in question, we didn't name him because no charges of any kind have been filed. That's been our standard for a long time, and it still is.

Not so long ago, I might have received a call from a curious reader or two inquiring why we didn't name so and so. I would explain our standards, and that, largely, would be the end of it.

For the 95 percent of our readers who don't know Steve Hildebrand - or don't care who might have ripped him off - our report was adequate. But because of Hildebrand's political ties to nationally known Democrats, including former Sen. Tom Daschle, the brouhaha instantly became big news for about a dozen people or so on the Web.

Today, the political factionalism fueled by the Internet - or is it the other way around? - can create a small, but vocal backbeat exerting enormous pressure on the standards journalists (and most readers) have long held dear.

That pressure - part competitive, part browbeating - can and does cause journalists to do things they might not once have done. And that includes identifying the Hildebrand employee and publicly branding him as a thief before the law has made a move.

Plenty of media outlets across the state (and elsewhere) "outed" the guy, and that's their choice.

It's not ours. Ironically, our attempt to set a standard of fairness has become, to a radical few, evidence of a coverup. And so it goes.

The true believers out on the blogosphere - that strange world in cyberspace where the political and social fringes thrust and parry - can make life miserable for an everyday media elitist like me. Few rules and no standards apply.

Those waves of often-strident opinion, salted with just enough fact to seem credible, wash against us - resolute and seemingly endless, like the sea itself. If good editors - and we are blessed with many of them here - are not on guard, standards can easily be pushed aside.

That is what we come to expect from Randell Beck…self-righteous reasons why the truth can’t be told. As predicted, Randell Beck uses the "we have high standards" BS, but he failed their own standard of not addressing with its readers the personal relationship the known suspect had with the Argus Leader. And Kevin Woster even admitted that "relationships" are what Republicans need to develop with the media:

So, yeah, Republicans need to be more active in developing relationships with reporters, and in pitching their stories.

Again here is the Argus Leader standard that says personal relationships need to be reported:

When unavoidable personal or business interests could compromise the newspaper's credibility, such potential conflicts must be disclosed to one's superior and, if relevant, to readers.

Wouldn't Beck be obligated to answer to those who charge Schuldt worked for his paper, and that Kranz and Schudlt were baseball card buddies?

And when Beck talks about "accuracy and fairness", he failed to talk about the rumors (not facts or filed charges) in regard to Bob Sahr. Whereas, it is a fact that Steve Hildebrand said he fired Chad Schuldt over the missing $100,000 in payroll taxes. The Argus Leader is not fair. And the Argus Leader has no room to criticize the blogs for spreading rumors.

But that doesn't stop Beck from attacking blogs. He said, "Few rules and no standards apply." That is a false accusation. The standard is "the truth". If someone floats an idea or theory, other bloggers will tear into it. If it is true, then it is uncovered. If it is not, that stops the speculation. That doesn't happen in the media. It is simply not talked about, unless it is unfavorable to Republicans or kind to Democrats. Dave Kranz is a master at that. But then there is no one that is allowed to respond to Kranz in the dead tree version of the Argus Leader. And when I have tried to do so with a letter to the editor, many times it is edited or not printed at all. So much for Randell Beck and his standards of accuracy and fairness. It the truth doesn't fit Randel Beck's and Patrick Lalley's worldview, it doesn't get printed.

Now to Beck's excuse about no charges filed. Why hasn't there been no charges filed? Isn't getting an answer to that part of the openness that the Argus Leader uses against South Dakota Republican administrations? After all, the missing money are tax dollars. And isn't there a public interest to make sure justice is done? And Randell Beck wants his reader to think his paper is so high and mighty with standards that ensure accuracy and fairness? BS.